Beginnings
by SoManyPuns
Summary: Max runs into shield.


_**Author's Note: After some debate, I have decided to just tie off this story. Deepest apologies to the readers, but my heart's just not in it. So instead of leaving you with the three half formed chapter ish sort of things I had going there, I just combined them into a one-shot**_

_**A thank you to TheAngelEditor for their review. I fixed the misspelling of shield (totally hadn't noticed it, whoops) and I have to agree that I should have put more effort into the story. Although this story takes place before Max gains her super-speed-flight power, it was a good point and I did not specify when this was taking place. And I think you misread on your last point. Fury and Natasha didn't overpower her, several SHIELD agents did. Anyway, thank you for the review.**_

_**Edit 2/28/2015: Okay, so after a review from **_WargishBoromirFan **I found out that the formatting on this was being weird and now it is fixed, for the most part. Apologies if I missed anything. **

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Shading her eyes, Max stared up at the sky, squinting at a small speck on the horizon. What in the… Her eyes widened as the vague shape morphed into a giant ship in the sky. The enormous engines roared above her and Max shielded her eyes as they kicked up even more sand.

The next instant it was raining men, (_hallelujah_) the mutant thought to herself with a dark snarl. They landed in a circle around her, something that must have taken hours to choreograph _(ah, the price of looking cool_)' Max lamented internally, and waited for the usual "you will not escape, resistance is futile" speech that experience told her was coming.

"Maximum Ride! By the authority of the S.H.I.E.L.D you are ordered to stand down" someone shouted over a loudspeaker, sounding like they took their job way too seriously.

Max rolled her eyes "You didn't say please" she chided, then attacked. The first man went down easy, obviously not expecting to be attacked. The second was a little prepared, but still easy, by the third faceless thug the rest were prepared and started fighting back.

Not that it made any difference, Max mused as she mercilessly slammed her opponent's nose on her knee, feeling the satisfying crunch of his nose breaking. More goons swarmed around her, pointing guns and shouting orders. There was no shortage of red lasers zipping around and had Max been given cat DNA she would be in serious trouble. The bird-kid kept in constant motion, dodging any shot that came her way. As much as Max would have liked to do an up and away, she knew there was no way to get out of range fast enough. Her wings would make to obvious a target and she couldn't afford to be grounded here.

Another man hit the dust, but it was a small victory, more people kept swarming out of God knew where, replacing the fallen as quickly as she could take them down. An arrow hissed through the air and Max leapt out of the way. She barked a victorious laugh at the direction the projectile had come from, they were really getting desperate. Too late she realized that everyone now had gas masks on and was backing up, then the arrow released a nauseous green gas. Instantly the impure air invaded her lungs and almost sent Max to her knees with a fit of coughing. She stumbled sightlessly away from the weapon.

"A woman with blindingly bright red hair leapt in front of her and the masked hordes backed away. 'A real challenge then, finally' Max thought to herself. The longer this fight went on, the more she was enjoying it, delighting in taking her revenge for the horrible things the school had done to her. It didn't occur to her that these goons might not be involved with the school, after all, history had proven that the school had plenty of dummy organizations working with them, all part of the nightmare

Red-head struck a fighting stance and Max nearly laughed, (_aw, how cute'_) she thought to herself. An instant later they were a whirlwind of strikes and counters. When the lady managed to get several hits in back to back though, Max was forced to admit that she was good. Maybe too good. The mutant stumbled away from her opponent, intending to do an up and away before things got too bad.

Something hit the back of her knees and Max tumbled to the ground where she was held down by several men. She struggled valiantly, but despite her extra-human strength she could not throw them off. Calm measured steps cut through the chaos still going on around her and Max found herself snarling up at the redhead and the dark-skinned man sporting an eye patch who now stood beside

Max smirked

""Something to say?" he asked

Yeah," she snarled. "Loose the eye patch, Matey" And then there was only darkness.

Max woke abruptly, a skill she had perfected over the years. It was necessary when you lived her life to be able to go from asleep to awake in the blink of an eye. Even though she had been sedated Max still woke fully aware of her surroundings, thankfully.

However, this was not a pretty scene to wake up to. She was in a hospital bed, tubes and wires sticking in a confusing array around her prone body. Her hands and ankles in leather restraints, though her wings were thankfully free. The smell alone (a lovely mix of sterile equipment and floor cleaner) was enough to give her nightmares, but being stuck there was putting her on the verge of a panic attack.

The room was small, obviously a sort of private chamber (not really encouraging) and blank, with white everywhere. What was with sterile environments and white? (Grey was a good color too, or maybe a nice mint green, she could see mint green…)

"Maximum Ride." Said someone from the doorway. Instantly Max whipped her head to face the direction of the voice. The same pirate wannabe from before was there, in all his one-eyed glory, he reminded Max of a Cyclops...

"That's me." She answered shortly as he entered the already small room

"Age: approximately 14 years old, Wingspan: 14 feet, weight: 95 pounds, height: 5'7. Daughter of Jeb Batchelder and Dr. Valencia Martinez. Leader of a flock of avian human hybrids that have been see all across the United States and other countries." The man summarized.

Max gave him an expression of wide eyed wonder, "Wow, can you tell me my future too?" she asked "Cause I can tell you yours." - Her face twisted into a dark snarl-"If you don't let me go you're in for a serious as-"

The man interrupted her "What I don't know is how you came to be." He leaned in close, staring intently at the girl "And I do not like not knowing something."

Max gave him a lazy, lopsided grin. "Haven't you heard?" she asked casually "Red bull gives you wings."

"After her little Red Bull crack, the pirate wannabe still stuck around. Which left Max a little disappointed, she'd been waiting to use that line for quite a while, and for 'Director Fury' to simply accept it without any sort of reaction was quite a letdown. So now she was stuck in a small room (a very, very _small_ room the panicked voice that was forever stuck in survival mode screeched) with a stoic government agent who insisted on asking her the same questions that every other government lackey had asked. Name, date of birth, where'd you get the wings, would you mind maybe coming back into a hellish nightmare of a lab so we can see what makes you so odd and possibly weaponize your genes/ kill you/other horrible needle filled nightmare? Alright, maybe she was paraphrasing a little. They shortened the lab bit to "Mind if we do some tests?"

Which, yes, she most certainly did mind. Since they were asking. Max considered herself a simple being, give her space, her family, and lots of food and she'd be absolutely perfect. But so far the universe had seen fit to remove all of these things, which was rather rude of it.

"I'm going to be perfectly honest with you" Fury began.

"Oh good, 'cause I'm about through with being lied to." Max snarled in response, fed up with the tiny room and the whole government feel of everything about this place.

Fury only gave her an unimpressed look and she sneered at him. Then he continued "We don't know anything about you, not your origins, not your creators. And that makes certain people in certain positions very nervous. And they are not people you want to make nervous." His one eyed gaze leveled at her, glaring and waiting for a response. Max rolled her eyes, and leaned forward, until she was mere inches from the man.

"I don't care who I make nervous. Let. Me. Go." She snarled, enunciating each word carefully. Making malice and promises of extreme pain drip from each syllable.

Fury's face remained impassive, one eyebrow quirked and he leaned back. Max wasn't stupid enough to mark this as surrender though. This man was not one to submit so easily. This was the battlefield changing around her. Fury was playing chess and all she had were checkers pieces.

"I think that's enough for today." He says and simply gets up, tapping the door twice. A guard opens it, rifle cradled in his grip.

"Please take this young lady back to her cell." Fury commands, and strides down the hall. Max smirks, Chess vs. Checkers wasn't so bad. Especially when you made up your own rules.

Max walked quietly out with the guard, who hadn't even bothered to cuff her. Her suddenly docile nature ended as abruptly as it had come when they came near a window. Knowing she really only had one chance at this, the mutant pretended to trip. The guard, who had been gripping her arm to guide his prisoner down the hall stumbled with her. Which was precisely what she had been hoping he'd do.

She turned the stumble into a neat roll, the guard fell prone onto the ground, rifle skidding a few feet down the hall. Max scooped it up and slammed the butt of the weapon into the window. Even with her greater strength it took several hits to shatter it. More guards swarmed down the hallway, coming towards her at breakneck speed. But Max would be faster, she was always faster. She backed up a few paces and ran forward, her shoulder slammed into the cracked glass and she was in the sky.

Max ignored the pain as glass shards embedded themselves in her skin, piercing feathers and clothing alike. Her long wings unfolded to their fullest length, she swooped in a completely random direction away from the helicarrier. Free and away from whatever nightmare SHIELD had been.


End file.
